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I’m inclined to agree, but with some exceptions, when it comes to pure bass boost in the absence of tuning other frequencies. I have Roon’s DSP engine at my disposal, along with an ASP “xBass” four-setting analog bass enhancement on my iFi Pro iCAN Signature amp (which I bought primarily for the...

Beware of Poe’s Law in my post—all cables sound the same. Irrespective of conductor. And cost.

I’ve had great success with the analog bass boost on my amp. It has no impact on the overall gain and I’ve experienced no clipping at all. I use Roon’s DSP PEQ when I need to, but the biggest issue I have with it is that no matter what adjustments I make, if I don’t decrease the global gain I...

Thanks for this terrific review! So should I assume that the PEQ is digital and not applied after the conversion? Sorry if I missed the explanation in your review but I’m still unclear on this. To me it would be worlds better if the EQ was at the analog stage, instead of mucking with the digital...

It may be a pride of ownership product, but I know of no other market or commodity where the most exclusive and luxurious option available was able to achieve such eminence without representing the pinnacle of quality at every imaginable criteria. You buy Armani couture, it’s going to reek of...

Maybe it’s just me but in this day and age, where everything is transparent at this point, cost tops my list of criteria when assigning a rating to a DAC. Given that our Chinese friends are cranking out the best you can buy for a few hundred bucks, I can’t even justify this box of screws for the...

I own these, along with the Edition XS, the HE1000se and and HE1000 Stealth. I traded in my Arya Stealths for the latter utilizing Hifiman’s ridiculously reasonable trade in policy—they’ll accept any lower-priced option for the higher-priced item of your choice for just the cost of outbound...

I think it’s awfully interesting how Topping, SMSL et al have been eschewing MQA of late. The cynic in me wonders how beholden to Tidal these DAC manufacturers are—is it a coincidence that now that Tidal has gone FLAC MQA is going by the wayside as well, or is it just because MQA went belly up?

I think the EQ is quite a thing with this unit! I’ve been aching for a DAC that has some simple tone modeling other than the RME—I already have an amp and don’t need a second one. What I can’t seem to confirm is whether this is a DSP or ASP EQ—if it’s the latter I’m hoping that they’ll implement...

Point taken about being off-topic. I admit that I didn’t sufficiently review the entire thread, my apologies.

I’m an academic clinician/educator in internal medicine and infectious diseases and I find it reprehensible that he would exploit those living with chronic illness by promoting false hopes and desperate measures to improve their wellbeing through the purchase of outlandishly priced...

This concept should be memorialized in a splash screen that pops up the minute you register for this site, with a CAPTCHA that forces you to sign an affidavit disavowing any notion that the choice of conductor, insulator, or direction of an audio cable has any influence on audio quality. I’d...

And silver sounds brighter—of course it does because it just looks brighter. Shiny. They sound shinier. But don’t get those gimmicky “silver tipped copper” cables—they’re drenched in veils…

K2HD has been around for over 15 years and is some funky approach to the mastering process, involving upscaling and using higher bit rates before dropping down to Red Book CD formats. Now it seems it’s being leveraged as a whole ecosystem, which seems uncomfortably reminiscent of MQA to me. Not...

$459 for a tiny portable DAC that supposedly leverages “K2HD” technology, which apparently amounts to nothing more than upscaling to 192khz. Delta sigma DACs already do this to much higher sampling rates. I think this qualifies as snake oil, if anything for charging $459 for a dongle, no matter...

*sigh* I’m always the last one to know about these things. I got all excited for nothing. But I showed it to Amir first and he hadn’t seen it! He suggested I post it here so it’s his fault.

Stumbled across this the other day. Rationalwiki has a hodgepodge of aims (some more appetizing than others) but one in particular is stomping relentlessly over pseudoscience or “woo” of any kind. Whodathunk they’d have an audio woo article, but they do! It’s surprisingly detailed. Let me know...

Thanks! The Gryphon also has a two phase analog EQ option in an xBass low end enhancement and a presence toggle that works similarly to a loudness function. I use the xBass constantly. It also syncs the volume function with the phone to allow you to control the volume from your device, has a...

Dan gave a talk on Passion for Sound on the benefits of a headphone break in period (see attached). Someone in the comments called it “burn in”, and I responded that I’d prefer to call it “break in” to differentiate it from the conflated woo topic involved with cables, DAC, etc. The guy who...

I definitely agree with you on DAPs—the idea of them is intriguing enough, but the ones I’ve purchased have been ridiculously overpriced and a royal pain to deal with. I paid some clinically insane amount for a FiiO M15 a few years back, and it came hard-encoded with a non-upgradable Android...